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by Christina Ethridge Leave a Comment

Before you run that quiz funnel and lose money make sure you’ve got these 4 pieces nailed

Before you run that quiz funnel and lose hundreds, even thousands of dollars, make sure you’ve got these four pieces nailed.

Recently, I was coaching a client who came to me with this struggle. She had recently run a quiz funnel and she had really, she’d gotten 1400 people in that funnel.

And she was so excited because like, “They’re my people, I love this, but here’s my dilemma, Christina. My open rate with these people has dropped to 4% and she’s averaging 30 to 40% on her other emails. But this group of people, not so much.”

Now, I went through a process to help evaluate this, and she happens to be an author who lives in Ireland. She writes young adult fantasy that takes place all over Ireland.

And so she was like, “Yeah, I did a ‘How Irish are you?’ quiz.” And I thought, “Huh.”

So I started asking her some questions. I said, “Well, who’s your buyer who buys your book?” She’s like, “Well, everyone.” I go, “Well, no, no. When you look at your data and you have all of these things showing who your main buyer is like, who, which one? Where are they? What do they look like, the majority of your buyers?”

And she said, “Well, my buyers are American. And they are avid readers. And they’re between this age and this age.”

And I went, “Okay, I can tell you right now. I know why your quiz funnel didn’t work for you.” She was like, “Why?” And I said, “Because you were drawing out just people who are Irish, how Irish are you – really simple? Right? You’re just drawing out people who are interested in their heritage, who are Irish.”

She goes, “But I have Irish readers.”

And I explained, “No, but you just told me that the buyers of your books, most of them are American. That doesn’t mean they’re not American Irish, but most of them are American. So what percentage of those people who are your buyers are actually interested in determining how Irish they are?”

It took her a bit to get through that. So in other words, she had set up a quiz funnel that was great, if you have an Irish store or an Irish product line or something that really resonates with people who are of Irish heritage.

But, she’s an author. And just because her books take place in Ireland doesn’t mean that that’s who her ideal buyer is. That doesn’t mean that’s the majority of her buyers. So, that’s where she went wrong. I walked her through the process to evaluate what she did versus what she would have done.

Now, I want to make sure that you don’t make this same mistake. So we’re going to go over the four things that you need to do before you run that quiz funnel. And I’m telling you, you lose hundreds, even thousands of dollars.

She lost 100% of the money that she put into it. And the time she put into it, she had to completely restart, revamp, so she lost all of that. So I want to make sure that you’re doing it the right way.

Here are the four things you need to nail before you run that quiz funnel so that you have a successful, list building quiz funnel.

1. know who your ideal person is that you want to attract to the quiz.

Now, whatever product you have, whatever business you have, you might be able to sell to everyone. But you have one set group of ideal buyers. You need to make sure that you know who those people are.

In her case, it was Americans who are avid readers of fantasy. That was her ideal person. But her quiz funnel was “How Irish are you?” People who are interested in their heritage, people who are interested, they may have nothing related to reading, which most of them didn’t in this case, doesn’t mean they didn’t read, but they weren’t her buyer. They weren’t interested in young adult fantasy that took place in Ireland.

So you need to know who your ideal person is that you want to attract to the quiz.

Another example of this, just to give you an idea is at the theater that I help volunteer for, we have two ideal clients. We have our patrons who buy our tickets, and the performers who are on our stage. And so we know where they each hang out, what social channels they hang out on, what the basic demographics are for both of those people, what the basic interests are for both of those people. You need to know that about your person when you’re doing this quiz funnel.

2. you need to know the struggle that they’re having and how it connects to the quiz that you’re creating.

So in her case, the struggle that that person would be having would be finding more authors or books that they like to read in the genre that they like to read. That would be kind of their struggle.

She needs to know the struggle that her ideal person is having and how it connects to the quiz that she’s creating.

That’s what you need to know as well.

3. know the solution that you have for them and how the quiz relates to the problem and brings them one step closer to the solution.

So what’s the solution that you have that you want to guide them to through your quiz funnel?

Yes, you’re using this as a list builder. Yes, you’re using this to find your people that are going to buy whatever it is that you have to sell.

But, in order to really make that connection, you need to figure out if you have a solution. So for her, her solution was I have these books that you’re going to like that you’re going to love reading. So that was her solution – giving them the entertainment that they need.

The point is, is that you need to know the solution that you have for them and how the quiz relates to the problem that they have that brings them that much closer to the solution.

4. know the next step that they need after they take your quiz.

So think open loop, think problem –> solution, and every solution creates another problem. So problem –> solution and from the solution, there’s another problem. And from that problem, there’s a solution. And from that solution, there’s another problem. So you need to know the next step that they’re going to take.

Why? Here’s where I’m going to give you a bonus tip, I’m going to walk you through, how do you connect with them after you brought them into your list?

So they go through the quiz funnel and you nail their problem. You give them a solution through that, and then what’s the next problem for them?

That’s when you’re going to meet them, that’s where you’re going to start connecting with them via email, because they’re now a member of your list. So when someone opts into your quiz funnel, your next step is to send them emails that they’ll open, read and respond to, but they need to connect to that quiz that you just gave, that problem –> solution that you just gave.

So what’s the next step? What’s the next micro-step? What’s the next piece?

I’ve created the perfect email templates that you’re going to be emailing them. And I want to make emails so much easier for you. So the email that you send to them, once they’ve done the quiz and you send that email, that email is shaped and has the right content in it, that they’re going to open, read and respond – because that is what you want.

That was part of our author’s struggle above. She didn’t have the right people on her list and since they’re the wrong people, they weren’t opening reading, responding. But, when she got the right people on her list, she was ready to start thinking about how to engage them and getting them to respond back.

So, that is what you need this template for. So let’s review our 4 must-haves really fast.

  1. Know who your ideal person is that you want to attract to the quiz.
  2. Know their struggle and how your quiz connects to that struggle
  3. Know the solution your quiz provides to bring them one step closer to their goal
  4. Know the next step they have to take after finishing your quiz

These are the four steps. Let me know in the comments below, if this helped you, if it didn’t, what’s your number one takeaway. I’m always looking for the takeaway, and the comment section is great for that.

Filed Under: Email Marketing, Lead Generation, News Tagged With: Done, lead generation, quiz funnel

by Christina Ethridge 1 Comment

Are you frustrated when your Facebook leads don’t respond? Here’s the perfect first contact email that gets them to respond


Sneak past your colleagues and dominate Facebook. Join me inside THE VAULT: CLICK HERE to join:


Hey there! Are you frustrated when you cannot get your Facebook leads to respond or any online leads to respond?

Today I am going to actually walk you through the process you need to have to get your leads to respond. And in particular I am going to teach you the perfect first contact email that they should get.

Because let’s be frank. Most of you all are sending out a whole long novel introducing yourselves and that is actually the wrong thing to send out. If you want responses I’m going to show you; I’m going to give it to you.

So if you want the perfect first contact email I’m going to teach you how to leverage that and which email should follow, then comment in this video with PERFECT EMAIL and I will send that to you.

We are going to talk about today like I said how to get your online leads to respond to you. I’m going to slip in some “how-to use marketing” so that it actually works and so that you are not just contributing to all the noise out there so that you are not one of the people who is getting “less than 20% or less than 30%” open rate so that you are actually using this and it is actually working for you.

So if you want that email, just type PERFECT EMAIL in the comments of this video. #RIBBIT will send it to you in messenger (and you actually do have to talk to #RIBBIT via messenger) so everybody go into messenger and respond to #RIBBIT to get it.  

Alright here’s my question for you.

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Do You Struggle With Getting Leads To Respond To You?

I really want to know. I need your help so I can help you, I really want to know do you struggle with getting leads to respond to you?

When they opt-in on your IDX or they opt-in through a home value ad or they opt-in in some way by giving you their email address, do you struggle with getting them to respond to you? If you do, comment below. Let me know!

And then if you have figured something out that you are willing to share, tell me, let me know because we want to curate everything that works. There are some things that I actually know work and then there are other things that make me go “oh, that works, that’s great!” And I would love to know that.

So if you are struggling with that, please comment below, it will give me a good idea on how to shape today’s session around you, the live viewer.

So again, we are going to talk about the steps that you need to do to get your leads to respond and I’m going to give you if you type in PERFECT EMAIL in the comments of the video the perfect first contact email via Messenger.

Now, here’s the thing with this. You need to know how to use it and why it’s the perfect first contact email.

When leads are first contacting us, first of all, we know that they are on the defense. We want them to be ready, willing and able and right away but the truth is that they are not.

They are on the defense. They are just kinda looking like when you go into a store and you just want to look around for the first time, see what’s going on and the sales clerk batters you and doesn’t let you think on your own, yeah, that’s what they think we are going to do to them. Because, heck, that’s what we have done to them in the past.

So what we need to do and remember is that they are just looking and they are most likely nine to twelve, nine to eighteen months out. That is every single lead that you come into contact with, by the way, not just online leads.

Unless someone you know is like “hey, my friends are out looking at houses, let me refer them to you,” that’s a little bit different and that’s actually rare. That’s actually what you do want to have, those instant ones. But right now we are going to deal with the 99% of leads that you get, that are not instant. The 99.9% of leads that you get are not instant.

Barb says

I received my first three opt-ins and have not gotten any responses yet from them.

So Barb, for all of you, here’s what you want to do. First of all, you always want to have opt-ins coming in. Always. You can’t just get a few and say “oh, I’m going to work with those!” No, no, no, no, you always have to have that pipeline always going, going, going, right, 

So then what we want to do is we want to use our email marketing so if they have not given you anything else except their email, I don’t care what they have given you- if they have given you their email then this must happen, 

This is the key with this- if they give you a phone number, absolutely stinking call them. If they have given you a mailing address, absolutely stinking send them a letter in the mail. If they have given you an email address, regardless of what they have given over here, regardless if you have contacted them via the phone number, regardless if you have contacted them via the snail mail, you must email them. 

This is not a pick one way and contact them.  You need to contact them always but there are different strategies for each way so that they are not feeling like “good grief would you pickin’ leave me alone?” Alright, so we are going to work on that email. We are going to talk about that email today.

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When Somebody Registers on Your IDX

First of all when somebody is registering in your IDX, say they register into your IDX, they were looking for properties, or you were listing a house for sale, whatever, and they opted-in, they gave you their first name and their 

What’s the first email you should send them? In fact, most agents, I don’t think I’ve met an agent yet who doesn’t do this. Most agents say “this is an awesome property! It’s gonna go fast, do you want to see it?” They may not always say that first part, but it’s always “do you want to see it? Do you want to schedule an appointment?” And the customer is like “dude, I was just looking at the property!”

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Think About The Customer’s Journey

The very first thing that you want to do, is you want to think about all of this, you want to think about the customer’s journey. What is their journey? And I’m talking about the micro-steps. Their journey is not opt-in, then suddenly say “I want to see that property!” That’s not the journey- you skipped a whole huge section here.

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What’s The First Thing You Can Give Them Of Value

You need to think about, okay, when someone opts-in, to your IDX, what is the first thing that you could give them, that’s valuable, that could help them continue their process? Well, the first thing is, you could confirm is that, hey, is the system, is the tech working for you? Is it working? Are you struggling with this, here’s a video for this, etc. You want to teach them how to use it so that they become ingrained in your IDX system, into your system.

That is the very first step, is to make sure they are actually getting what they want, like tech-wise. Then you start going “do you want me to do tweak any searches for you?” Then you move though that journey.  

The whole point of this is, that you need to be giving value. You aren’t going to plug them for an appointment. Yes, if they want to see something there will come a time. If you notice them looking a the same piece of property over and over, then say “hey, do you want to go see this? I can get you in this Saturday, or whenever, if you want to see this.

You can be both assertive and not offensive. You can both be a closer without driving a nail into their head, you can do it both ways. The key to this is the journey, the journey. You want the next microscopic next step for them.

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Your Two Goals In Your Email Marketing

Here’s the thing, you want that journey, but here’s the thing, when you are doing email marketing, I’ve shared this before, I think I shared this yesterday in “The Art of Nurture,” when you are doing email marketing, you have to realize that your, YOUR number one goal is not to get an appointment. Your number one goal is to get into the email inbox. Your number two goal is to get opened.

Here’s the thing, and I talked to you yesterday about the stats, three out of every ten emails that are sent never make it to the recipient. Never. They could be emails. They could be stuff sent normally back and forth. Just the morning, I had our email service provider, who sends us emails fairly regularly about our account, etc, I found one of their emails in spam. Makes no sense, because they have never been in spam before. But that’s one way that three out of ten emails don’t make it to the recipient.

The other way is through your ISP. So it’s not that it could just be blocked on my spam level. It could be blocked on the entire global email, like Gmail could block it before it ever even gets to you or your ISP could block it before it ever even gets to you, their outgoing ISP. There are so many places the email could get blocked, lost, etc. And it’s very typical 30% of emails don’t make it to the recipient.

Now, how do you circumvent that? First of all, you don’t just send one email, that’s the first thing. But second of all, you need to get into their inbox, which means that you need to have a subject line that they would be interested in. A subject line that is not full of spam, not a sales pitch that actually tells them what they are getting in the email because not only do you want to get into their box but you want them to open it.

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How To Get People To Open Your Emails

The way to get people to open your emails is to number one have good subject line letting them know what is in the email.

Number two deliver what you promise. If they open that email and you have a sales pitch in there or if they open that email and it’s a long boring diatribe about yourself and your services and thank you and blah, blah, blah, they’ll never open another email again.

Because it’s not about them and it doesn’t serve them and doesn’t help them. You have to make sure that you are serving them and helping them.

And there are all kinds of other stuff! The number of pictures you include in the email, the number of links that are in the email.

If you are using a fancy email signature with all of your social media links on it you just killed your chances of getting into most people’s inboxes. If you are even using a fancy email with your brand name all over it and stuff, you just killed your chances of getting into their email inboxes.

I teach you all of this and there is science behind it.  I teach you all of this in “The Art of Nurture,” and also in these two additional courses that are inside of ”THE VAULT.” There are two courses, two additional courses, I wrote them down, and why am I like missing them right now. The two additional courses that I am talking about is the “Email Marketing,” and the “Perfect First Contact Email,” all included in “THE VAULT.”

The link is in the description of this video. If you want “THE VAULT,” if you want “The Art of Nurture,” if you want your emails to get into the email inbox and if you want to circumvent spam.

If you want to know the real research, the real science of what you should put into your email and what you shouldn’t so you can actually get into people’s inboxes, then you need “The Art of Nuture,” and the “Email Marketing” workshop, and the “Perfect First Contact Email training.” Those are all in “THE VAULT,” so get the “THE VAULT.”

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Deliver What You Promised

You want to be sure that you are walking through that customer journey. You want to make sure that you are delivering what you promised.

If you say one thing in the subject line and if you are like every other email and your first email is like “Hi, I’m Jane Doe with RE/MAX or Century 21 or Coldwell-Banker (it doesn’t matter) and I’m so glad that you used our blah, blah, blah today and I just love helping blah, blah, blah.” You know Charlie Brown?

That’s what they hear. They hear nothing. They read the first line and go “boring!” And then delete it.

After that first email, if they don’t open up your other ones that affects your deliverability.

So if you don’t have something that’s focused on them, if you are not asking them to reply to you, in a way that allows you to help them where they are without forcing them to the next step you will never get email marketing to work for you.

If you keep sending them stuff that is out of left field, stuff that’s not related to real estate or if you use a vendor that says “we’ll get your emails open!” Well yeah, but so?

It’s unrelated to what they are even interested in. They are interested in their home, in their future home, in their family, in their friends or in the lifestyle that they live or want to live.

That’s what they are interested in and if you aren’t delivering that to them in their email in some way, it’s going to be pointless and meaningless.

In some way, it’s like “why bother doing any sort of lead generation if you can’t follow up that way?” Here’s the thing- your snail mail needs to be the exact same way. Your snail mail needs to be about them, not “hey, we just listed fifty new listings” or “we just did this, and we did that.”

Sure, great, you want to throw that out to them every once in a while but if that’s all you ever send out, whoosh, it gets thrown into the round file or square file, whatever it is, trash can.

So you need to be about them. You are trying to buy know-like-trust relationships.

Okay, so Jonathan says

Christina, I have +/- 68% open rate for my introductory e-mail (similar in tone to the sample ‘perfect e-mail’ you offered earlier), and 48%, and 41% for 2nd and 3rd follow-up (within 7 day period). I average about 4% reply rate. It seems as though I’m getting opened, but not able to get that direct engagement started. How do I increase the replies?

So, the way that you increase the replies, Jonathan is saying “I’m getting opens, but I’m not getting any replies.” Yes if you are getting opens but your open rate is collectively going down for each one- tweak the very next one.

So if your open rates are 68% for the first one make sure what you are promising in the subject line is what you are actually giving to them and only that in the email.  If there is just too much stuff in there, or like, more than one specific thing to do then that’s going to create confusion.

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Your First Email Should Request A Reply

Your first email should also request a reply. Like this one is very specific, tech could be buggy, “if it’s not working for you, please hit reply and let me know.” That’s a quick little easy unrelated to “hey, come to my office and let’s meet.”

Then by the second email, because something should be happening between the first email and the second. If nothing has happened maybe you missed a step. What I mean by that is maybe the next step that they need to take, the next micro-step, is not what you think they need to take.

Maybe that’s why that second email has a lower open rate. Actually your emails should be getting a higher open rate as you progress through especially if you just keep giving them value.

So if you think through “what’s the next thing, what’s the next thing,” in shorter steps most of the time, we go too big, too long.

What else can I give them? What’s another resource that I can give them?

Also it could be how far apart you are sending your emails. They could be too close, too far apart. Just kind of depends. There are a lot of variables in that to know. You should want to tweak that and test that. Try them closer together, further apart, you know, the logical steps to take next.

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Give People Something They Value

One of the things that I do with our emails is that lately, I’ve been doing an email every single day out to my email community. But I’m going to switch that up because I’m trying to get you guys to come onto the trainings because that’s where the value is so I’m letting my email community know that “hey, I’m out here on a training….you should come online if you can, otherwise you can watch it in replay.”

So if you want to have people stay subscribed to that, to actually be giving them something that they could use. If you just decided “okay, every Saturday I’m going to send out a special discount to do something.”

Here’s the thing- if you are going to be giving out a “coupon,” (I put the quotations around it loosely) or discount away, make darn well sure that that coupon or that discount cannot be gotten anywhere else.

Make darn well sure that it’s not the typical thing that everyone offers, because if it is, there is no value to it.

What we used to do is, we worked with one of the local coffee stands around here, and just say “hey, if we give out a $5 coffee gift card, whoever uses it, just charge us. Or a free drink, just charge us.” So that’s what we did- we would do it via email…You get a free drink on us. That’s it, just print this, go to this coffee stand and you get a free drink on us.

You can do that. And usually what the coffee stand would end up doing is they would split what half of that free drink costs with us and we would tell them “you have to use it on a certain day,” it wasn’t like a “you can use this eight months later” kind of thing. We wanted to keep the costs not “reigned in,” but not straggling.

So we did that, we did free frozen yogurt, we did a lot of free wine tastings announcements because we like wine. We used to do customer events like that.

You can also give them the latest news on what’s going on in their housing area. If there is something that got notified or something people might not get notified about like right now today is on track to be the hottest day of the year where we live.

I think that they said it was supposed to be, oh no, hold on, they said tomorrow is supposed to be hotter, wow it’s going to be 104 degrees today and 108 degrees tomorrow, which is just insane. That’s crazy for here!

We average the 80’s! That’s crazy insane for here. But because of that, there have been all kinds of “don’t use your fire pits,” and all kinds of fire warnings. That’s the kind of stuff I would send- not everyone is on Facebook all the time to see those messages. Not everyone’s got their TV’s and radios on.

You could send something like that. You can send out some breaking news anything related to their house, their living, etc. that they’re doing or events that they might want to do.

We had a situation a few years ago, like I don’t know if you guys know but the entire Northwest was on fire. We weren’t but the area surrounding our little town was. We were surrounded, completely surrounded, which the air was horrible, the air-quality was off the charts.

It was so bad, it was off the charts. So literally, we weren’t leaving our house, it was really bad. And that was something that you could notify people, like my parents wanted to take the kids up to an area for a couple of nights and I’m like “you can’t, because it’s worse up there!” They hadn’t realized how bad it was- like it was bad outside and really bad. It was like a blizzard up there but it was smoke.

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Share Things That Relate To Their Lifestyle

So you could share that kind of stuff, all of the things that would relate to their lifestyle- this is their lifestyle, this is their living, this is all about them.

And then pop in things, tools that they can use to make their search easier. You know, if you also said “hey, have you been using Zillow? Here’s a couple of things you should know about using Zillow. If you find a home on Zillow, pop over here to your IDX, (just assume they are using it), and here’s how you can check to see if that home is still available.”

And pretty soon, they are going to realize that there are actually a lot of properties on Zillow that aren’t actually available and you are going to teach them how to check for themselves and at that point, once they start checking and realize “oh, this person has my best interest at heart!” or “oh, I will listen to them.”

That’s where you want to really be- you want to be helping them and teaching them, helping them to grow. That’s what you are going to use your email marketing for. That’s what you are going to use your snail-mail marketing for.

And you still keep putting house stuff in there because there will always be people who are interested in buying and selling and then wanting that data.

But here’s the thing, we put people on our email list and snail mail list and we think that we only want to help them through the home-buying business. They are only in the home-buying or the home-selling process for approximately six months.

Only a couple of times in their entire life, unless they are like me and move every three years because I’m abnormal, but typically, people only move a few times in their life. Like buying and selling houses- that’s only about a six month process through that whole thing.

So from the time that they get really serious to actually buying a house what are you going to send out the rest of the time to keep them interested? You talk about their life, their lifestyle, etc.

You engage them in everything that is surrounding what’s in it for them.

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Take Microscopic Steps

Usually the steps that we go are way bigger than where they are so if we could just microscopic the very next thing, like if it’s the tech or “do you know how to use the search for this?” Then give them a video, “here’s how to use the search,” or “here’s how to save properties, “ or “here’s how to view that listing,” or “here’s how to see if that property had a price reduction,” or “here’s how to schedule an appointment to see the property!” and sneak that in there.

Then “here’s how to text me if you need me to answer any questions you’re not seeing answered on there,” things like that.

Show them how to do all of that. Because remember, most people aren’t techy. Like they just aren’t, most of them don’t know how to use this stuff. Most of the Realtors aren’t techy either, but when you are showing people how to use it, you’re going to have to learn it so show them.

That’s where they are seeing the value. That’s where they are going to see the value that you are offering to them.

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What Was Most Useful For You?

So I have a question for you! I always, always want to know the answer to this- what was most useful for you today?? When I’m talking about all of this and teaching you all of this, what was the most useful for you that I could help you with? That really helps me when I know what was useful for you and if it’s something I should dive deeper on then I will!

Today was an example of what I needed to dive deeper on.

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Q & A

Melissa says

I have Boomtown. Do you have follow up texts and drip email campaigns that have worked for you?

Okay so there are a couple of things- you can automate some stuff, alright, but you need to set up the journey. You need to figure out and map out the journey.

Here’s what I mean by that- when people opt-in to Boomtown, we used TigerLeads at the time as opposed to Boomtown.

When people opted-in the very first thing that I sent out was “hey, were you able to find what you were looking for? How was the tech for you?”

The very next thing I would send out was a video of where I would teach them on how to use the behind-the-scenes of that, you can automate all of that. You create it, then you can automate it.

So, you can’t use somebody else’s because it’s your Boomtown system.  You would have to show people on your system, how to use it, how to set it up. Then you are going to want to show them how to find certain things- sometimes it’s hard to find the details of what they want, show them how to find that.

Show them if they are looking and this is where you want to start customizing what they’re looking at and then set them up on a list. Okay so yesterday on The Art of Nurture I gave out a template of exactly what to set people up on the minute they opt-in. You need to set them up on automated emails as far as listings go.

So you need to map out their journey yourself and customize it which a lot of it can be automated, however, it’s going to be custom-automated meaning you can’t use someone else’s drip campaign for it.

You need to figure out what their journey is through your system and teach them how to use your systems.

Lois says

I have a Realtor program to give out 10% discount coupons to clients. Is that a worthwhile gift?

Eh…yes and no. They have 10% off coupons all the time. I mean, they’ve got some good options, but anyone can get those anywhere. I would still give it as a gift, but it’s more about raising awareness of the gift then the value of the gift. The value is in that you are raising awareness by giving them the gift- you need to give other things, things that they normally wouldn’t get as well.

So I am just now starting this, What can I give my #RIBBIT, my Messenger subscribers, my Messenger community that are getting notified of these live streams… what could I give them on Saturday because I’m not on live? What do I have of value to give them, that they are asking for and they are wanting. So that’s where I got that idea from.

You guys could do that for yours. You could give them a surprise value. Maybe there is an event going on where you could give them a surprise discount too or a surprise entrance fee or something, a ticket to the event.

Rick says

What’s most useful is the discussion on micro-steps instead of let’s meet and go see houses.

Exactly- now don’t get me wrong, you want to make sure they are available and that they know that you are available, I mean, they know that, obviously, but you don’t want that to be your main push because you want to build their trust. Once you have their trust, you can ask them for the sale as long as you keep giving value they are not going to turn away.

Here’s the key, we are building know, like and trust relationships because when somebody knows, likes and trusts you, they are loyal to you and they will stick with you because they know that you are going to teach them, that you’re going to help them, that you’re going to inspire them, that you’re going to give them.  

This is exactly what I’m doing on here you. You see me training every single day in the month of August. Yeah, I’ve offered a few of you entrance to “THE VAULT,” and you can get in, but I will be closing “THE VAULT,” that’s an absolute, I will be closing it, but here’s the thing- in the meantime, I’m still going to train you. Even if you aren’t in “THE VAULT,” I’m still going to help you tackle a couple of things. If I can just give you a little idea that will help tweak your business because even a one degree change, a one degree tweak completely changes your destination.

That is my goal with you, to help you, all of you.

Barb says

The idea of doing tutorial videos for my clients is what was most useful.

Like, yeah, isn’t that surprising. We don’t even think about what they are using, how they are doing it, etc.

A lot of people come in and they are nervous about the contract and things like that- you don’t have to go every piece of the contract, but you could highlight a couple of things that people tend to have the most questions on about the purchase and sales contract, about the buyer agreement contract.

You can actually highlight it and talk about it and say “this is what it means,” and “here’s the questions to ask,” etc.

Teach them, educate them. Tell them what questions to ask the agent they are working with (just don’t assume they are going to work with you) but know that whatever they are doing, you are in their brain. You want to make sure they are making the best choices for them.

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Filed Under: Email Marketing Tagged With: Done

by Christina Ethridge Leave a Comment

Creating the perfect first contact email to send to your IDX registrations

Crafting the perfect “first contact” email

This email is specifically for your first automated email that goes out when users sign up via your IDX (this one is sent directly by your IDX/MLS system)

If you can’t control (95%) what is said, and how much is said, in your first email via your IDX/MLS, you need to change IDX providers.


FEATURED DOWNLOAD: The 7 questions to ask an IDX provider before you commit (checklist & comparison template). Click here to download.


Always remember, this is your business. Your IDX vendor does not have a clue about email marketing & conversion. Don’t ask them their opinion. Their first priority is to protect the load on their servers and to protect their email reputation. Seek out the truth of what actually works in the real world.

The 4 “S” Elements of a perfect first contact email:

Singular

It must have a singular focus.

What is that focus?

The goal for this email is not to get the contract. It’s not to get a phone call.

It’s only goal is to get opened, get read and get a reply, otherwise known as starting a relationship.

Why is this your goal? Because you want to make sure all your emails get to this person.

You are building your email reputation with their email provider (so you get through the spam and block gates).

You are training them that what you have to offer is spot on and valuable, that it’s worth their time to open and read, that you want them to click a link or respond… aka to take action.

Short

You must keep it short.

What is short? No more than 5 sentences, total.

Why short?

Because you don’t have any relationship with this person. None.

You have not given them any value or reason to open and read your emails.

You need to start building that know, like and trust relationship and it starts with short, succinct emails.

Simple

You must keep it simple. This is not your opportunity to dump everything on them.

You don’t need to blatantly promote you or your services.

You don’t need to overwhelm them.

You need to focus them.

To bring them along their customer journey one step at a time.

We don’t even realize we’re doing this, but we are:

Stop thinking from a mindset of scarcity and lack and start thinking from a mindset of abundance.

Emails that try to get “all points in” create the energy of desperation and that energy is FELT by the recipient.

Example:

“I see you were looking for homes in XYZ. But if that area doesn’t work there’s also ABC. And if you have a home to sell you can DO THIS. And if you aren’t ready to sell check out our property management. And, if you just don’t want to move, you can refer me because I heart referrals. And if referrals aren’t your vibe…” and so on and so forth.

Service

You must come from a place of service, but not the service of “I can help you buy or sell.”

You need to come from a place of service that makes progressive sense.

What do I mean? I mean that after they’ve logged into your IDX, what is the next logical step, the next logical conversation you should have with them?

Here’s a hint, it’s not “what home do you want to see.”

It’s “how was your experience – did the tech work – did you run into any snags while using the portal?”

What to include in your first contact email:

First Name

You want to use their name – just their first name – in your email.

Clean Signature

What do I mean by “clean signature?” I mean short. Concise. Use your name and brokerage (OR team name).

I mean something like the following:

Christina
SKE Realty Group LLC

Post Script

You want a short, succinct P.S. that is the CTA from the main body of your email, worded slightly differently

Footer

This needs to include your brokerage, legal disclaimer, whatever, but without links and in a slightly smaller font and it needs to be at least 10 line spaces below your Post Script. It also needs to include your one-click unsubscribe.

What not to include in your first contact email:

Your story

This email isn’t about you, it’s about them. They don’t care about you until they know you care about them.

A safety net

Don’t be so focused on scarcity that you try to grab all possible ways they could use your services.

Multiple calls-to-action

When you have more than one CTA you confuse them. You overwhelm them. Don’t do that.

Multiple links

Not only is this a confuse/overwhelm issue for the reader, it’s also a deliverability issue. If you have more than one link, your deliverability drops drastically.

Logos or images

Another email deliverability issue. Additionally, it’s a wrong focus issue… branding or exposure vs. converting into a relationship.

Remember, your goal in your first contact email is to get into their email inbox and to get opened. It’s a bonus if you are able to start a conversation.

The best way to start a conversation with anyone is to focus it on them without exuding pressure from them.

Think of their most logical, smallest step in movement, while also anticipating their struggles / thoughts.

Here’s a case study from one of our Leads and Leverage members you can download and check out. I’ve included the original email and the re-written email.


FEATURED DOWNLOAD: The 7 questions to ask an IDX provider before you commit (checklist & comparison template). Click here to download.


 

Filed Under: Email Marketing Tagged With: Done, real estate

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